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Just short of the hour mark in Istanbul, after he had scored Rangers ‘ first, brilliantly assisted their second, then came inches away, twice, from adding a third, Cyriel Dessers reminded you of a boxer, dancing around the ring, toying with a bewildered opponent.

The Fenerbahce backline were on the ropes. Their defences were down and so were their heads. They remonstrated with each other about this menace in their midst and their inability to stop him. Dessers was running amok.

There were many major performers on this night of nights for Rangers – all of them, quite frankly – but Dessers was one of the star turns.

Rangers folk have had a torrid relationship with him. A kind of Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor vibe if you are old enough to catch the drift, an on-off thing, love and hate, tempestuous, never dull.

If you look back over Rangers ‘ past 25 to 30 years, you’ll see that Alfredo Morelos and Kris Boyd managed back-to-back 20-plus goal seasons in the top flight, but it is a pantheon with few heroes.

That’s not a word many among the Rangers support would associate with Dessers.

He has spoken before about feeling written off only months into his first season at the club – last season – how his misses were more talked about than his goals and how it made him feel like the worst Rangers player ever. His description.

On Thursday, he looked like one of the best Rangers strikers of several decades. Classy, dangerous, resilient, he was inches away from an away European hat-trick.

One goal, one assist and one lovely cushioned pass to Nico Raskin before his sumptuous delivery to Vaclav Cerny for the goal that made it 3-1 was a mighty contribution from a maligned player who just keeps going no matter the doubt that rings in his ears from the stands.

Maybe you could say the same about Rangers in Europe.

This tie isn’t over, but they produced something very special in Istanbul and take a two-goal buffer to Glasgow next week. Nobody saw that coming. Absolutely nobody.

They were immense. Had they won by four instead of two then Jose Mourinho suggested that he could have had no complaints.

This was a glorious night for the ‘ Four Bears ‘ – the interim coaching team of former Rangers men led by Barry Ferguson – and a continuation of the surreality that surrounds this collection of players.

Defeats in recent weeks by Motherwell, St Mirren and Queen’s Park in the Scottish Cup. A manager sacked. A support in uproar. A Glasgow rival laughing in their face, 16 points clear in the league and so far ahead on every metric that you wonder when, or if, the chasm between them will close.

A team that struggles hopelessly when dealing with the low blocks of smaller clubs domestically – they have dropped points in 11 out of 29 league matches – and then delivers their very best stuff against better teams in European football.

Sigmund Freud could not get to the heart of this lot. He would end up on the couch himself with Carl Jung waving a fan and some smelling salts in his face.

Is there one to rival them in the Rangers ‘ odditorium’? Club historians will have plenty to say on that.

In more recent memory, the Giovanni van Bronckhorst side of 2021-22 are worth a mention. They got to the Europa League final that season, only losing on penalties.

They beat the Borussia Dortmund of Mats Hummels, Raphael Guerreiro and Jude Bellingham then the RB Leipzig of Konrad Laimer, Josko Gvardiol, Dani Olmo and Dominik Szoboszlai.

One missed penalty in the final shootout against an Eintracht Frankfurt side later broken up and sold on for serious money was all that stopped them.

All of those massive nights against heavy-hitters in Europe and they had to settle for second place in the Scottish Premiership to Ange Postecoglou’s new Celtic team.

There are big differences between that team and the Rangers of today, though. Van Bronckhorst’s lot fought hard domestically, losing the league by just four points and winning the Scottish Cup.

They were never as far off the pace in Scotland as the current crew, and never displayed the kind of incredible turbulence that has been so pervasive this season.

Winston Churchill described the geo-politics of the old Soviet Union as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma – a description that could be stolen and applied to the twin personalities of this Rangers outfit.

Fenerbahce, like others before them, afforded Rangers time and space on the not unreasonable premise that a team not good enough to score against second-tier opposition in Scotland was hardly likely to cause them too many problems.

Big mistake. Huge. They reckoned without the Jekyll and Hyde, the domestic Rangers and the European Rangers, the Rangers who have the devil’s own job in breaking down defensive teams in the Premiership but who are like kids in candy stores in Europe when there is space and an ability to counter-attack.

Dessers typified the effort: strutting, lethal and head and shoulders ahead of more celebrated strikers down the other end.

Ferguson and his coaches deserve huge credit for a formation shift to three at the back, which worked well. For sending their team out with belief when those players had reason not to believe.

Betfred Super League

Hull FC (6) 22

Tries: Cartwright, Barron, Ese’ese, Martin Goals: Lane, Sezer 2

Leigh (12) 22

Leigh Leopards lost their 100% record but reached the Super League summit for the first time in their history after a brilliant, action-packed draw against Hull FC at the MKM Stadium.

The Leopards seemed to be in command when they led 12-6 after Hull had both Aidan Sezer and Jordan Rapana yellow-carded within the space of five minutes.

But the home side fought back in a sensational second half, squaring the game twice through Harvey Barron and Herman Ese’ese – only for Lachlan Lam to set up David Armstrong for two tries that restored Leigh’s advantage.

Seeking their first home victory in eight months, the Black and Whites began well and drew first blood when Jed Cartwright collected Cade Cust’s short pass and sped over for his first try of the season.

Leigh’s response was almost immediate as Lam’s dummy gave Andrew Badrock the opportunity to set up Niu, who barged over the line before Gareth O’Brien’s conversion attempt bounced off the frame – just as Sezer had already done for Hull.

But the contest was ignited when referee Thomas Grant sent both Sezer and Rapana to the sin-bin in quick succession for high tackles on Armstrong and, with Hull conceding a string of penalties, the visitors took advantage.

However, Hull’s 11 men produced a spirited response, not only keeping their opponents at bay but reducing the deficit to six before they returned to full strength, courtesy of Jordan Lane’s penalty.

The hosts maintained their momentum after the turnaround and pulled level as Sezer’s crossfield punt eluded Tom Briscoe but was snapped up by Barron, who wriggled over the line.

Leigh regained the lead when Lam found Armstrong, whose burst of speed propelled him into the corner and, despite being grounded short of the line, the full-back clung on to force the ball over.

Back came Hull as John Asiata teed up Ese’ese to thunder his way across the line – only for Lam and Armstrong to combine again and edge the visitors ahead for the third time in the game.

But the Black and Whites refused to give up and Martin’s try in the corner with seconds remaining brought them level again – only for Sezer’s conversion to miss its target and set up a golden-point scenario.

Hull FC: Moy, Barron, Briscoe, Rapana, Martin, Cust, Sezer, Ese’ese, Bourouh, Aydin, Cartwright, Lane, Asiata.

Interchanges: Ashworth, Fash, Hutchinson, Knight.

Leigh: Armstrong, Brand, Niu, Hanley, Hodgson, O’Brien, Lam, Trout, Ipape, Hughes, Badrock, O’Neill, Liu.

Interchanges: Brogan, Tuitavake, Davis, Dwyer.

Football fans can be tribal. But when it comes to ticket prices, there is unity.

“We are all fighting the same fight on ticket prices”, said Manchester United Supporters ‘ Trust CEO Duncan Drasdo.

“Clubs are exploiting loyalty and fans are united in saying enough is enough”.

When 19 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs raised their ticket prices before the 2024-25 season, the Football Supporters ‘ Association (FSA) launched a campaign called ‘ Stop Exploiting Loyalty’.

Those protests have grown again this season, with some clubs removing concessionary discounts for the elderly and young people – and teams like Arsenal announcing increases for 2025-26.

The cost of competing for trophies, increasing operational expenses, and the threat of complying with financial regulations, have all been given as reasons for price hikes.

Premier League clubs made a total of almost 1bn euros (£830m) from selling tickets to home matches in 2023, Uefa’s European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report shows.

That figure is growing by about 10% per year, and is almost double that of Spain’s La Liga (£481m) and Germany’s Bundesliga (£430m).

The report uses a mixture of full financial reporting of more than 700 clubs for 2023, plus 2024 figures from 130 of Europe’s biggest clubs.

“What the figures show is that English top-flight clubs are doing very well financially in a whole number of different metrics”, says Tom Greatrex, chair of the FSA.

“Healthy ticket revenue shows people are wanting to go – but also shows the ratcheting up of ticket prices in the past few years. That is manifesting itself in the protests and disenchantment we’ve seen”.

Arsenal and Tottenham’s positions are helped by sales of high-value hospitality seats at modern stadiums in London – one of the world’s most-visited cities.

“What we have seen clubs do through stadium expansion is a huge focus on those seats being hospitality”, says Dan Plumley, senior lecturer in sport finance at Sheffield Hallam University.

“On a basic financial level it makes sense, because you can generate more from that than a baseline seat.

” But if that is stopping your more average fan getting a ticket, that is something clubs are going to have to grapple with. “

The Uefa report paints a similar picture to other research such as the annual Deloitte Money League – with Premier League clubs bringing in far more revenue (£6.2bn in 2023) than other European leagues.

However, English clubs reported a combined loss of £728m before tax.

TV rights deals are showing signs of plateauing, so clubs need to maximise matchday income and commercial and sponsorship revenues to try to offset significant spending on transfers, wages and running costs in order to turn a profit.

The report outlines some eye-watering spending figures:

Chelsea’s 2024 squad was found to be” comfortably the most expensive ever assembled”, 24% higher than the previous record – the 2020 Real Madrid squad. The report also says Chelsea spent almost 2bn euros (£1.7bn) in transfer fees in the five-year period to 2024.

Plumley says:” Each individual club will have its own reasons for doing it, but raising ticket prices doesn’t shift the dial massively in terms of the overall picture of the finances.

Manchester United’s controversial plans to make up to 450 redundancies, cut about 39% of its workforce and “return the club to profitability” have put a sharper focus on how many people are actually needed to run a football club – and the operating costs involved.

While transfer spending remains a club’s biggest outgoing, the report says high inflation in areas such as utilities, plus the wages spent on more employees to expand commercial activity, is biting.

“Operations costs have increased – that’s fair”, Greatrex says. “But increasing ticket prices way beyond the level of inflation, year after year, which is what has started to happen with most clubs in the Premier League – and then trying to claim that PSR or financial fair play are the reason – is the clubs treating people as though they’re idiots”.

Salaries paid to non-footballer staff members have also risen sharply.

The logic behind the rise in staffing numbers varies per club. Brighton, for example, employ a notoriously vast recruitment and scouting operation.

The report states that employee growth can be explained by clubs ‘ desire to wring more from commercial and sponsorship deals.

Across Europe, income from commercial and sponsorship deals has risen by 39% since 2019.

“Commercial income is almost untapped in terms of potential and there is no restriction on the number of deals you can sign”, Plumley says.

“But you have to throw more resource at that.

” There are more roles now in football clubs than ever before. Some of them are quite forward thinking.